James Tillis v. Marvis Frazier

This is where Joey Curtis is "damned if he does" and "damned if he doesn't."

In the Dokes-Weaver fight, two years earlier, the same Joey Curtis stopped the bout in a similar situation, and all hell broke loose. Investigations took place.

This content is protected

If he gives a standing eight, it's terrible. If he stops the fight, it's terrible. If he lets the other guy land 20 or 30 unanswered punches (I believe Dokes landed 27 punches in a row to Weaver's one), then he's accused of being asleep on the job and a danger to fighters he's supposed to protect and he's terrible.

 

Weaver also got knocked down, and when he got up, he didn't answer any of the refs questions or even look at him.

You could also say the ropes kept Weaver up a second time when he fell back against them.

I didn't think the Weaver fight should've been stopped when it was, because it was a title fight and all.

But you see the dilemma. In one case he stops it and catches hell. In the other, he doesn't, and someone like you says the eight count robbed Tillis of a win (and it probably did).

Then again, if you let a guy pummel someone trapped in a corner or being held up by the ropes until they actually go down unconscious, you get labeled a danger to fighters.

It's really a no-win situation for anyone. The guy standing up isn't fighting back, but the guy punching can't seem to end it, and the guy getting hit isn't out, but he's sort of using the ropes or corner for balance, and the ref feels he should do something because he's the only one who can.

 

Can someone explain to me what the "standing 8 count" is?

 

The standing eight count is the same as a knockdown. If you are stunned by a punch and probably should've gone down but the ropes or something else kept you up, then the referee can issue a standing eight count.

The ref is supposed to treat it the same as if you'd been knocked down. The other fighter goes to the neutral corner. The referee counts to eight while looking at the fighter to determine if the boxer can continue. When he reaches eight, he either decides the fight can continue or he waives it off.

It used to be used by referees more frequently, but the trend in last couple decades has been to either just stop the fight with the boxer standing and not issue an eight count at all, or only issue an eight count if the fighter has been knocked to the floor and has gotten up.

I'm assuming too many people complained that the injured boxer was allowed time to recover after being stunned, instead of just letting the boxer in charge finish him off.

 

But he issued an eight count instead and Frazier not only didn't get hurt, he won.

 

I agree. Most refs today probably would stop it. But if they used a standing eight, it scores the same as a knockdown, and the ref gets a better idea of whether the person is really as badly injured as he thought they were.

Seems like the stoppages aren't as controversial if you implement a standing eight, rather than waiving it off and having the stunned guy immediately flip out and demand to know why you stopped it.

 

You take a fight like Hasim Rahman-David Tua I. Instead of stopping the fight when he did, that would've been a perfect time for the ref to issue a standing eight count. Rahman was still stunned from being hit after the bell in the previous round. Rahman was sitting on the ropes, which were holding him up, but he was bobbing and weaving trying to avoid Tua's bombs.

Rahman was hurt. He wasn't punching back. The ropes were keeping him up. But he wasn't out. A standing eight was more warranted there than a stoppage.

 

Mills Lane improperly used a standing 8 count to rob Bert Cooper of a TKO victory over a badly rocked Evander Holyfield. The fight was not in Vegas, and no standing 8 Count was approved for that fight. When Mills realized during post fight interviews that there was no standing 8 count approved for that fight he came up with some bull**** about "but for" the ropes, Holyfield would have gone down. Mills Lane was a judge and "but for" is a term of art in the legal field. In this case, Lane was covering his own ass for mistakenly giving the 8 count to the helpless Holyfield. Had Lane let the fight continue at that point, it is very likely Cooper would have unloaded more shots on Evander and stopped him.

 

Davey Pearl gave Hearns a standing eight count at the end of the 13th round against Leonard. Hearns hadn't gone down. The ropes kept him off the floor. His glove never touched the ground. But the ref gave him a standing eight to close out the round. When the bout was stopped in the next round, there wasn't much of an outcry, even though he didn't seem as in trouble as he did at the end of the 13th, because the referee had been watching closely and gave him every opportunity. And Hearns and his corner didn't complain.

 

If the ropes are preventing a fighter from going down it's right that it should treated as a knockdown.
I thought that was different to "standing eight count", the point and exact nature of I just don't understand.

 

No, Holyfield was effectively down. He pitched face-first into the ropes and his knee might have touched down. If not, it certainly landed on the bottom rope. He rolled along the ropes. I think that's pretty much also been the rules of boxing. If a man is held up by the ropes he's considered down.